Free When in Bruges (Humorous Romantic Mystery) by Nic Saint

had been peacefully resting in the car. The thing is, it’s not all that easy to sleep in the cramped space awarded the motorist, and after a while, his legs started to cramp, his head hurt, and his lungs ache for some fresh air.
    Kirt exited the car. Stretching his stiff limbs, he let out a long sigh of relief. Finally, he was free again after having been cooped up for what seemed like hours. Even professional detectives dislike being treated like birds in cages.
    Looking up and down the street and detecting no immediate danger, he decided to take a little stroll. Not too far, of course. Just checking out that tree over there, and perhaps have a smoke. Reaching the tree, and seeing it contained no cops or other intruders, he decided to stretch the boundaries of his reconnaissance to the next tree. And when he discovered, upon reaching the target, that a small night shop operated on the corner of Gazet Street and Paf Street, and that he was all out of smokes, he ambled over to replenish his dwindled stock.
    It was when he was coming back from the shop and lighting up, that he felt he should, perhaps, go and check on Chris. In and out, his friend said. But as far as he could ascertain, he’d already been in there at least half an hour, and still no sign of the nocturnal marauder.
    He checked his watch. Yep, at least half an hour. There wasn’t much that worried Kirt. In fact, his was an attitude so laid-back, some inventive teacher in school had once compared him with the common brown bear, in that both the bear and Kirt have a tendency to hibernate during the long, cold winter.
    But seeing as his friend and partner now took uncommonly long for the simple task he’d set himself out to perform, Kirt really started to worry, and picked up his step, setting a course for the house. And he’d almost reached his car, when a voice suddenly rang out from behind him.
    “Stick ‘em up, buster!”
    Luckily, Kirt still had his cigarette clenched between his fingers. In an attempt to distract his assailant, he threw it in his direction.
    “Hey!” said the other.
    With a nimbleness one wouldn’t have suspected in a big guy like Kirt, he whirled round, and was ready to strike his aggressor with a knockout punch when suddenly it dawned on him that he knew this person. And not only knew her, but liked her. A lot.
    “Lauren!” he cried, pulling his punch before it hit its mark.
    “Kirt!” exclaimed Lauren, just as surprised as Kirt to find a familiar face where she’d expected a hulking brute.
    “I didn’t expect to see you here,” said Kirt, stating the obvious. And realizing that this was one of those moments where mere words don’t suffice to express a man’s deepest emotions, he relaxed his fist into an outstretched hand, pulled Lauren close to him, and enveloped her in an embrace that was both warm and tender.
    Lauren, who could have easily lodged a protest against this sudden intimacy with one she hardly knew, said nothing and let herself be enveloped, listened entranced to the few broken endearments her erstwhile attacker whispered in her ear, and subsequently allowed herself to be kissed.
    As far as moonlight kisses go, it was perhaps not the most romantic one ever recorded in the history books, but neither Kirt nor Lauren seemed to care. And it was some five minutes later, when a heavy object came whizzing through the air and attached itself with a dull clunk to the tree next to where they were kissing, that they finally disentangled themselves and looked up.
    Kirt, though he liked Lauren from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her in Queenie’s Orchid Room, had rather feared the long and protracted dating stage every relationship has to go through before it reaches journey’s end. Not that he wasn’t ready to dine Lauren, take Lauren to the cinema, go for long moonlit walks through romantic Bruges with Lauren and do whatever else he could think of to woo her.
    But his thorough knowledge of himself knew that he